Outline Concept
“The new form embraces the old, lifts it, and fills it with significance even in union with the drama of the Grossmarkthalle - like a hand given something to grasp. These two forms, the old horizontally-oriented and architectonically valuable, and the young, flexible, highly organic and vertical, enter into an tense interplay and become organised into a single, .new structure, a single sign - a line that is supported and half enclosed by an underlying arch.

Dynamism and poetry arise in the confrontation between these two forms, it is a dialectical work which provides inspiration for untried opportunities for working and living.

The original expression of the Grossmarkthalle will not be changed. Out of respect for the building’s aesthetic qualities and its history, which is both cheerful and terrible at the same time, we incorporate it into a new, extensive dialogue with a luminous partner. And where the Grossmarkthalle has stood as a wall by the river and contributed to the separation of the northern and southern areas of the city, the transverse orientation of the new building will partly dissolve this barrier. There will be an expectation of something »on the other side«.

When visitors move around the finished project, the two building corpuses, with their internal arch connection, the two opposite ends of the ship, so to speak, will move dramatically in relation to each other. This will be an original work, a sculpture, which will not resemble any other building in Frankfurt.

The contrast between the two enormous buildings and the sculptural appearance created by their meeting requires an extensive open space surrounding them, which will enter generate an interplay with this sculpture. The extensive space and the new ECB also constitute an important factor from the point of view of security.”